At Lincoln Center’s Stanley Kaplan Penthouse, music drips through the air like wax from the candles on the tables scattered throughout the space. At late-night concerts, part of the annual Mostly Mozart Festival, concert-goers can listen to works by and influenced by Mozart while drinking wine and drinking in the view from the tenth floor.

This concert by England’s Tippett Quartet, their debut in Canada, was about time. The Quartet came together in 1998, the year of the passing of their namesake, Sir Michael Tippett. Their first musical offering of the afternoon was Tippett’s Fifth and final String Quartet (1991), with Anna Smith filling in for Jeremy Isaac on second violin.

Music fans love to get the whole picture. We consume box-sets, bootlegs, alternate takes, and artist interviews – all in the name of completeness. Some people say a good CD library should have at least three Eroicas and five Fifths to be complete, while music magazines might recommend more. Of course, live music venues have their own shot at completeness when they schedule a “cycle”.

It would be difficult indeed to imagine an evening of string quartet playing at once more diverse and more brilliant than this. Already one of the world’s finer quartets after only a few years in the public eye, the Quatuor Ebène are notable for their catholic tastes.

The renowned Chilingirian Quartet gave an electrifying performance of celebrated string quartets by Bartok, Haydn and Beethoven at London's Wigmore Hall.The concert began with an outstanding rendition of Bartok’s Fourth String Quartet (1928), which consists of five movements in a loose ‘arch’ form.